Foggy Bottom - GWU - West End

In a Nutshell

The Fine Print

Promotional value expires Mar 21, 2011. Amount paid never expires.Limit 1 per table. Dine-in only. Tax and gratuity not included. Not valid with other offers.Merchant is solely responsible to purchasers for the care and quality of the advertised goods and services.

Kinkead's Restaurant

Hungry fishermen are known to bend down by the waterside to let minnows, eager to escape life in a small pond, leap into their open mouths. Dine on fish that made it to the big city with today's Groupon: for $25, you get $50 worth of seafood and drinks at Kinkead's Restaurant, located steps from the White House at 2000 Pennsylvania Avenue NW.

Kinkead's chef and owner, Bob Kinkead, is an IMFA Silver Plate Award winner who has been invited to cook for the James Beard Foundation on multipleoccasions. At Kinkead’s he has assembled a menu of seafood dishes fresher than the Queen’s pillowcases. Washingtonian, which put the restaurant on its list of 100 Best Restaurants of 2010, recommends the Ipswich clam appetizer ($17), the chowders ($9), and the crab cakes, which it and the Washington Post agreed are among the best in town. Taste two of the notable noshes at once with the Chesapeake trio: Maryland crab cake, Smithfield ham, and oyster-and-crab chowder served with Eastern shore corn flan, garlic spinach, and a three-mustard cream sauce ($31). Though seafood selections are constantly changing, a raw bar and an ample wine selection are always available. For smaller plates, the new bar menu offers lighter options such as artisanal cheese plates (three selections, $11); Blue Hill Bay mussels with rosemary, mustard, and cream, ($13); and an apple-cider vinaigrette salad ($14).

Kinkead's atmosphere is as fresh and thoughtfully assembled as its sea fare. The place has two stories: upstairs you’ll find a classy dining room with neat white-clothed tables and clean modern lines, and downstairs is a 40-seat bar with smooth leather and glossy wood. Piano notes are plucked every Thursday through Saturday night, lending the spot an air of elegance not unlike that found inside Burton Gilliam’s medicine cabinet. Call ahead to make a reservation.

This Groupon is valid for dine-in only.

Reviews

A paean to all things piscatory, Bob Kinkead’s flagship serves up glittering platters of raw, shucked oysters, chowders that would make a New Englander pine for home, and crab-stuffed filets of fish that honor and improve on the Maryland fishhouse staple. – Washingtonian

While a wave of new places to eat around town kept me away for a long time, returning to this bustling, multi-level restaurant reminds me why the crowds continue to flock here. – Tom Sietsema, Washington Post